Hello everyone! I am a complete beginner in this hobby, and this is actually my first time visiting AstroBin. I don't have a budget for gear right now, but until I can save up, I really want to keep learning and engaging with these incredible works. Where should I start? Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
Where should I begin?
Well written Respectful
Welcome!
Do you have any background in visual astronomy or general photography or any other related field?
Well written Respectful
Hi
Warm Welcome to Astrobin
As a new hobbyist over a decade and half ago, I was probably in the same position and did not have any gear myself. Here is what I did ( although not many online resources were there then) and main source was books. Got my 1st gear nearly 5 years after I started this hobby.
Get yourself familiar with the Sky, Motion of Planets, Constellations etc. There are several books and You Tube Videos which give proper knowledge sessions on basics of Astronomy. Quite a lot of Tutorials are now available on YouTube
Incase you have a pair of binoculars and if skies are reasonablly dark in your area, go out and scan the sky and try spotting a few major stars, planets , moon phases etc. You can use Mobile apps like Stellarium or others and will help you guide it. Visual Astronomy is a best way to learn
Once you are reasonably familiar, try to watch some videos /books on how telescopes, optics , cameras etc work and how astrophotography images are captured.
Once you are confident, you can start to learn some basic Astrophotography Tools on image processing like Siril, Seti Astro etc which are free and open source.
Even though you have no gear of your own, there are enough free data sets available taken by professional astrophotographers on various sites which you can take up for processing. Initial results may not be as good but with enough practice you can improve and master it
By then hopefully you will have your own gear to start imaging !!
Hope this helps !
Aloke
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